CID withdraws application to impound passports of 3 TNA MPs

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 December 2008, 09:41 GMT]Sri Lankan Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Tuesday withdrew the application filed at Colombo Magistrate Court to impound the passports of three Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians S. Jeyanandamoorthy, P. Ariyanethran and S. Gajendran, who have been grilled by the CID on allegations that they violated the Sri Lankan Constitution and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in speeches that they made at a Pongku Thamizh event held in Germany.

On December 5, CID filed a case against three TNA MPs stating that they have violated Sri Lanka’s constitution.

Batticoloa district MP Ariyanethran, who was traveling to India was blocked at the airport on December 07 by the airport officials who told the parliamentarian that they had received orders not to allow the parliamentarian to travel outside Sri Lanka. When the parliamentarian had asked the officials to produce evidence, they replied that it was not their duty to produce any court order.

However on December 8, the TNA Parliamentry leader R. Sampanthan raised the matter in the Parliament stating that the CID has prevented Ariyanethran to leave to India without a valid reason and also said that his parliamentary privileges had been breached.

Speaker W.J.M. Lokubandara told the MPs that the matter was being forwarded to the Parliament privilege committee.

At the moment MPs Jayananda Moorthy and MP Gajendran are out of the country.

Meanwhile, the CID has told courts that they will further investigate the matter under section 120 of the criminal procedure code.